United States Senators and Social Licking Among Cows

I am amused by this 2002 paper by Faust and Skvoretz, called Comparing Networks Across Space and Time, Size and Species.

Here is a choice quote: "The model of social licking among cows best predicts, as a target, cosponsorship among U.S. senators in the Ninety-Third Congress."

Note: The sentence is highly amusing, and I understand it in the context of the paper, but (1) the term "predicts" is misleading with respect to the analysis performed, and (2) one of course has to ask how the result changes if a different sample of networks is used. There has, of course, been a bunch of work (including by my collaborators and me) in the last decade and a half on examining similarities among networks.

(Tip of the cap to Brian Keegan.)